The Athletic Hockey Show - Who replaces Brayden Point if he can't play in the Olympics?

Episode Date: January 14, 2026

Sean and Sean offer up their replacements for Brayden Point, if the star forward from the Tampa Bay Lightning won't be healthy enough in time to play for Canada at the 2026 Winter Olympics. They guys welcome Aaron Portzline to discuss the struggling Blue Jackets and the impact new coach Rick Bowness will have on this perennial underachieving team, and Sean and Sean discuss how Mitch Marner has fit in with the Vegas Golden Knights and if the Boston Bruins are a legitimate playoff team.Hosts: Sean Gentille and Sean McIndoeWith: Aaron PortzlineExecutive Producer: Chris FlanneryProducer: Jeff DometWatch full episodes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@theathletichockeyshowJoin our Discord Server: https://discord.gg/VTm9VjkFSubscribe to The Athletic: https://theathletic.com/hockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the athletic hockey show. What up, what up? It's the athletic show for January 2nd. I'm Sean Gentilly. I'm here with Sean McIndy. Buddy, we are Frankless today. Somebody's not.

Yeah. We were ships in the night in Washington, D.C. yesterday. He was there for Caps, Canadians. Caps ended up one in that one. I'm here for other reasons. Buddy, how, how are we? I know you've had a great.

Great morning. Yeah. Doing the stuff I love. I'm a professional tech support guy now. Congratulations to New York Times tech support team honorary member, Sean McIndo. So it's fun. And I miss Frankie. I do.

We miss you, Frankie, because I'm sure, like, he's going to listen to the show, right? He'll definitely. He listens to all the shows. He loves the prospect show the most. He's a big prominent guy, Frankis. Yeah, that's right. Lane Hudson thing, he's really a big fan of it. That's right.

All right. It's mid-January. The Olympic-related injury stuff is starting to stack up kind of across the board. But the big one that we have the luck of talking about as the Wednesday show, Braden Point helped off the ice Monday. You folks probably know that already. That's been a bit of a story. Couldn't put weight on his right leg. It did not look good.

Sean, we got the Pierre and CJ report yesterday sometime during the afternoon. Not great for Tampa, not great for Team Canada. The direct quote from that is, The Lightning haven't placed any firm timelines or revealed the nature of the injury to points right knee. But a league source said Tuesday that it's, quote, not good. Not good. So I guess there's like, like, you can like read the tongue. own into not good however you like.

But I see that. I think it's really, really not good. Well, but there was then some clarification, was there not that it was, they avoided the worst case, which is a phrase that seems to come up a lot these days in sports and then he was week to week, which basically means he didn't blow at his ACL. Yeah, that's like, that's like sprain, not tear. That's usually what I infer from that. But week to week is not great, especially in the league where, I mean, we've seen guys leave the ice with bones sticking out and they're considered day to day with a lower body.

So we got a month until the Olympics. So if he's week to week, he's got about three of them. Yep. And then I don't know if Braden Point would have to. come back before the Olympics to be on the team. I think there's probably some guys where you would say that. Like, we need to see proof of concept. We need to see you in the NHL and play.

You know, points a guy that's, he's a veteran. He's been there. He's been part of Team Canada for a little while now. He's like a Sharpie name on that roster. That's been clear, right? He was one of the initial announced names for the Four Nations thing. Like, he clearly has that kind of cachet. It's John Cooper, right?

So, I mean, they're going to know. Team Canada is going to have the inside information on exactly how good he is or is not. And it also, I mean, it potentially creates a fascinating situation for John Cooper. If there is, if it's a situation where Braden Point can play but there's an element of risk to it, now what do you do if you're John Cooper? You've got to win a gold medal, but are you going to risk a guy who is, a key piece of a team that right now is absolutely a Stanley Cup contender. And they're rolling.

Like if John Cooper wasn't on Team Canada, he'd be sitting there right now going, take a few weeks off, buddy. Take your time. No Olympics for you. Get back. Be ready down the stretch. We got a playoff run. Right, because you automatically go from three weeks of rest to five or six, right?

That's what the Olympic break turns into. It feels like, you know, in the NFL where a team, like, you know, a guy will be like questionable. Going in the by week or whatever. They got the by week coming up. So, you know, man, if they give them this game off, that doubles it. It's kind of like that. So it's the situation right now is we don't know until we hear more details. But it is, it's a very, very interesting dynamic given John Cooper's involvement.

in all of this. And yeah, how does it, how does it play out if? And I underline if, because we don't know this yet, but if it's a situation where there is any element of risk for re-injury, it's a tough call. I mean, we're obviously talking about injury replacement. Sentis Cooper. We're talking about injury replacement.

Nick Paul. I would say. And we try to get Yanni Gord, a Canadian passport. You know, let's just let's mix in some more lightning guys. We might be one short. As long as it's not a Florida Panther, I think that's still. Okay, well, let's see. Like you, as proud, proud Canadian that you are, I think, like, here's kind of the choice.

It's like, to me, it's a two-tiered thing. You have to figure out who you replace a point on the roster with. And the names there that CJ and Pierre brought up, they're the obvious ones. It's Bennett. It's Bedard. It's Wyatt Johnston, which is very interesting. possibility. Mark Shreifley, Seth Jarvis, Travis Kinnakeney, those are the guys who are on the reserve list. So they're the most obvious potential candidates to replace them. So let's work off

that list, dude. Like, you can pick one. Let's just assume that Braden points lower body injury, air quotes, is not healed adequately in time for the tourney. So Bennett-Badar, Johnson, Shreifley, Jarvis, Kinnett. You as Team Kinnett, GM can pick one. Who is it? Boy, it's tough. the name that you would have said a week ago, you said if a Canadian forward gets hurt, I think you probably would have been down to Bennett and Bedard as your two. All due respect to Seth Jarvis, who was on the team,

all due respect to Mark Scheiflu continues to have a great year, but those would feel like the two guys. And the answer would have been, well, it depends who gets hurt. It depends what role you're filling. And Braden points a tough one, Because, you know, he falls a little bit in the middle of that. Not purely an offensive player. Yeah.

Which, you know, obviously if you lose someone who's pure offense, you feel comfortable going to Bader. If it's, if it was Tom Wilson who got hurt, come on down, Sam Bennett. I think brain points closer to that first group than he is to the second, but he is a guy that he seems like there is a very real chance that he was going to be playing a wing on a line with Connor McDavid. So if that's power play time, if that's the role that you're the kind of player that you're losing out on and you're trying to find a one for one replacement on a very gifted offensive player who, you know, yes, can possibly play second line center, but maybe you'd like to see him most of all on a win with McDavid and then get some power play time. It's badard.

It is bad. And look, I mean, you don't, you almost don't really have to worry about center versus wing, because. because there's like 10 centers on this team. You'll be able to figure that stuff out. But as far as chemistry, as far as, you know, it can be tough, man. This might, this might be the inn for us to see Bedard in McDavid on the same line. Like, I don't like, is that, yeah, I'm not to say that this is a good thing for anybody, really,

and it sucks for Braden Point certainly. But, like, if there's a silver lining here, it's that the people are of a large subsubing, set of people are going to get what they want here. Yeah. I think it's very, and of course, this just means they're going to take White Johnston and, you know, whatever. Which would be fine to. Completely.

I don't think it's Bennett. Yeah. Even though he was on the team last year, even though, you know, cons might. And he's been better. Like, he's a guy that through the first month of the season was not exactly putting his best foot forward for this team. But he's been better lately. So more, it was more than a month, man.

It was. Yeah, you're right. but I mean, I just feel, and I'm being a little too simplistic here, but it kind of feels like Tom Wilson got the Sam Bennett role on, Tom Wilson's a better version of Sam Bennett. Like, he's more Sam Bennett than, like, that guy is, yeah. I don't know if anyone's as Sam Bennett as Sam Bennett is. Like, Tom Wilson is a good regular season player.

The Department of Player Safety is aware of Tom Wilson, so that's strike one against him. Already. He's not their pressure. He's a very well-behaved fellow these days. We know this. Just as Philippa-Heedle. I mean, Cooper is going to be a key part of the decision. And he coached Sam Bennett last year and presumably enjoyed it because everybody says Sam Bennett's the guy that you hate him until he's on your team and then you love him.

And probably nobody could testify to that more than John Cooper who, really, really hates Sam Bennett four times a year and then maybe seven times more in the playoffs, but probably likes him just fine. Now, that said, John Cooper was part of putting this team together and Bennett wasn't on it. So to me, this is a, this is where you go more for the offensive guy. Yeah, I agree. And there isn't anyone out there who's a one-to-one replacement for Braing Point. It just, yeah, definitely not.

bud um i something to watch on something to watch on the baddard front by the way this is something to keep in your back pocket jeff blashel's his head coach jeff blasheel is john cooper's assistant for several years before this those there those guys are those guys are tight i think jeff lashel's pretty thrilled with the way of connor badard has played hockey over the last over the last few months so if there was any need uh to have some kind of reinforcement or just to have someone gas up to an extent Bedard's overall play, I think you can rely on that coming from Blashell to Cooper. I think that's a nice little tick to have in Bedard's column if he wants to make this team.

And don't forget, when this team was named a couple weeks ago, a lot of the discussion leading up to it was Celebrini or Bedard. And they were right there with each other. And then Badard gets hurt. and it was sort of a feeling of, well, you know, maybe that's the out. Maybe this is. And at the end of the day, like, Macklin Celebrini just took this thing by the throat and said, I'm going to make it impossible for you not to put me on the team. Get to watch the Celebrini show in person tomorrow, baby.

They're playing the caps. I get to get to check into that. That's why you're there. Cool. Yeah. Not, not really. But Darg was almost there too, though, as far as forcing his way on. And then he was hurt.

And now he's back. So, I mean, maybe this timing works out. Now you guys, you guys get to have celebrating on a line with Crosby and Connor Bidard on a line with Conner McDavid. Sweet. Sweet. It would be a lot of fun. Congratulations. Yeah.

Yeah, we'll see. But it's okay. But you guys have Brock Nelson to shut that down. So do not look at Jason Robertson's hockey reference page right now, whatever you do. Oh. I had some big news pop up over the last couple days. A coach firing. We got Aaron Portsline.

our Columbus writer to join us after the break. Stick around. All right, we're back. We're joined by Aaron Portsline, who's the team he covered, the Columbus Blue Jackets. They are fresh off a 5-3 win over Calgary. That's not much of a surprise. The big news coming out, though, is Rick Bonas's first game as the coach of the Columbus Blue Jackets. Dean Everson dismissed. Not too long ago. It certainly seems like based on reading your reporting and the stuff that you wrote over the last week or so, it certainly doesn't seem like it's a huge surprise. Anybody looked at the standings could have figured that out. But also, let's start with this.

Don Weddell told you it was the most frustrating season of his career thus far. That's an incredible statement from a guy who's been in the league that long. I think it kind of speaks to why we're looking at the situation that we're looking at here. Decade with the Atlanta Thrashers. Exactly. Probably. He was booking arena shows in Raleigh. Like he had to worry about booking, you know, Brad Paisley to play at the Lenovo Center down there while he was trying to run a hockey team. And this is somewhat more frustrating.

And that's why I was like that, you know, Don, that really begs a follow up because you've been in the game. I don't want to say, you know, you're old or anything, but you've been in the game for quite a while now. You really mean that or are you just like sort of expressing frustration? No, no, it is. And I'm like, okay, okay. Oh, boy. But he also... Start the clock.

Yeah, the same conversation didn't give, certainly a full, you know, support to Dean Evesant. And not a huge surprise, like you said, that it's that he didn't finish the season, Eveson with the way things were going. But I was naive enough, I guess, to think that it might take until the Olympic break before they made that move.

Just that huge gap there is so inviting. But I think they did the math. They looked at it. And another thing to keep in mind is not only do they have to think about this idea that they still think they can make the playoffs, but Don Waddell needs to have some sort of clarity by the trade deadline, right? Which is sort of much closer than people realize. I mean, not in terms of on the calendar, but in terms of game played.

As soon as it comes back from the Olympics, it's like a week. So, yeah, he wants some clarity there and started well last night, but we'll see where it goes. Speaking of clarity, we should be clear on Rick bonus. Because unless I missed it, when they hired him, they didn't say interim coach. Correct. I pressed Don on that. I'm not sure. You guys have all seen this.

in the sports world get weird about words, right? Yeah. We're not rebuilding. This is a reset, right? You know what I mean? We're not rebuilding. We're not overhauling. We're retooling.

Yeah. That's right. He isn't in. We're not shopping, but we're listening. Yeah. And I think the other distinction is that they're not, he's not in place while they're looking for another guy, like now. Okay.

It's settled through the. end of the season, he's going to be the guy through the end of the season, and then they're going to talk. So he may be the coach going forward, or is this like understood that this is just for the year? I mean, the guy sees, he's going to turn 71

in a couple of days. Yeah. Yeah, and so we very well could be, the Blue Jackets could be looking for their 14th coach. It's incredible. It's incredible. In 26, in 25 seasons. You can put your resume in?

how does that work? Don's got your number so yeah not far apparently and I don't

believe the storytelling that a phone call was made Monday hey I know you're on a pub would you come here and start coaching our team like I think that phone call happened

I think that was the official we're going you good let's go yeah let's go right get get off the boat like you're not

you're not that surprised I think they knew I think the bluejackets played in Colorado Saturday, knowing that Hebron was, had essentially been fired. I think the decision was made when they did what they've done so many times the season, four-one lead against Pittsburgh. Yeah. Turns into a 5-4 overtime loss at home.

It was, it's one of those feelings you guys have all had it where you're watching the game, and it doesn't matter. You just know. It's a six goal lead, and you're like, well, four and seven. four and seven. Like the other team is just so, the blue jackets were just so caught up. No one's playing hockey.

They, you know, a guy gets the puck, looks up, there's literally nobody to pass it to because everyone's like, I don't want it, you know, it's just a complete meltout.

And that's, that's been the story this year is the blown leads. And, and for those of us on the outside, when you hear about a team blowing a lot of leads, yeah, it's, it's one or two things.

It's either they're not playing the right. They're not playing structure. They're just everybody's freelance and everybody's trying to get the next goal. Or they lock it down so much that they're paralyzed. Yeah. And it sounds to me like it was the latter in Columbus. It was just chipped the puck out and then at the end of the period, you wonder why the other team had the puck the whole time.

I think there were a lot of games like that, but there are also other games like the Pittsburgh game where there was a sense of panic and just complete. unraveling of of play where a panic. I mean, they were overcome. They've had three, two goal leads and three games against Pittsburgh. They pulled one out and it was either overtime or a shoot out early and they've lost the other two, right?

But Pittsburgh's come back every time. Oddly enough, the third game of the Rick Bonus era will be Saturday at Pittsburgh. So, here we go. It was, was it after the Pittsburgh game? I saw it, I saw it in one of your stories, the quotes from Werenski trying to explain kind of what happened in the third period there. That's the sort of stuff when you see you're like, okay. This is, this is something's going to have to give here at some point soon. And I don't think like it's, I don't think they were.

I mean, no coach says, okay, guys, sit back, right? I don't think it's ever that implicit. it, but I think the lines you put out, the words that you use, the just don't make a mistake here, guys, get the puck deep, not be with the puck when you get it deep, not possess it in the back zone, just get it deep, nothing stupid here. I do think it creates sort of a psychology with the team. And there would be games where they're either, it's either tied or their upper goal in its early third period coming out of a out of a stoppage uh or even mid third period coming out of a tv timeout and offensive zone start goes to the fourth line right and you're like they seriously what is

what is the thinking there and you would ask and it would be well you know i trust my guys i'm rotating the guys i don't want to and i think from their perspective they thought well if we don't just play the way we have played, then we're encouraging a sense of panic. And then you get into this situation where people are doing things, or not doing things because they're wondering how they're going to be perceived and are they going to create the panic? And then you're just completely in your head. And it just felt like no, but there were no answers for it was, we got to start getting some bounces. And you're like, okay, you're 50 games in, guys. Like, it's not bounces, right? And that's the, and, you know, you mentioned the time element in 15.

games in, you know, they don't, they don't have until the Olympic break to waste. Like, this needs to start now. There are seven points out of a spot in the Metro Division. There are five points out of a spot in the wild card. There's a gazillion teams ahead of them. They're, they're functioning at the bottom of the conference there. Like, there's, there's no time to waste. I was, I was taken by something Bonas said, too, and this is, this was in his initial, you know, his initial conversation with you as the head coach. This seems like it's going to be music to the ears of the fan base, certainly after what they've watched for the last little bit or the season.

I'm a pressure coach. I'm not a sit-back coach at all. That's all the way we all know that about Rick Bonas. I don't like what we've seen. We're sitting back and that drives me absolutely nuts. We're going to play pressure. We're going to manage the puck better and we're going to make it hard for the other team to create offense.

When you're on your heels in this league, man, you're going to get burnt. The league's too good. There's too many highly skilled guys. If you want to let them come at you, and you want to give them time and you don't want to hurt them or hit them, you're going to pay the price. Like that is directly in line, Portie, with the problematic stuff you've seen from this team over the last few months,

isn't it? That sounds like he's already in the mindset that's going to give them a chance to dig out of this. Yeah, it sounds like he's been in the comments section thinking, how can I speak to the people? He's in the Sunday gathering comment section. How can I speak to the people here? And you know what? Last night, they were better in the third period,

but you could still see that there were like the old tendencies at times where it's like, no, no, no, just go, go, play. Like, I think it's going to take time. Like Fantilli and Johnson played a ton last night. And Johnson made an impact. They're two young guys, of course, but they're still fighting it. Like, I still think there's a lot of stuff to work through here. And if he keeps feeding him time, maybe they come through it.

But you've seen how these things happen. the coach bump right where it just swells up this feeling. And he's probably not saying entirely different things than the previous guy was, but he's saying it in a different way, giving the players something that they can attach hope to. And I think professional athletes, people in general want to attach hope to something when things are not going well. And if that's where it starts, that's where it starts.

You've seen it here before. So, Aaron, I got a... I guess I got to ask you, whenever you see a mid-season coaching change, unless there's really weird extenuating circumstances, it almost always comes down to a GM saying, this team is underachieving. Right. This team is better than the record.

Yeah. I look at this Blue Jackets roster. Are they better than a 500 team? I guess my question is sell me on the idea that this team is underachieving as opposed to this team slightly overachieved last year to get to 89 points, but this is basically a true talent 80 to 85 point team, and Dean Eveson was getting that out of them. Right.

Yeah, it's a great question. Last year's team, everybody had two hands on the rope, right? There was a built-in emotional trauma tie to things right off the bat where you knew where it was coming every night. there are there's a lot there's a lot of questions with this group i think um you could say that they i'm not sure that they're a top three metro team but i definitely think they could should be a wild card team um having said that i'll point out some deficiencies here that they have one goalie they have a goalie uh and mers leacons has really really struggled i don't think he wants any part

of a backup role. He's openly said now twice, I'm getting ready for the Olympics. That's what I'm doing. That's rough. Right. Monaghan's hurt. He's been playing through stuff. He was one of their best forwards last year. The really troubling thing this year is Fantilly had 31 goals. He's backpedaled a bit. Still, I think he's at 12 over 13 goals. So not out of the question that he gets there. Ken Johnson and played a ton last night, was noticeable, but wow, like he has disappeared when compared to last year. So, you know, we know how these things go with teams that are relying on young players. It's not a straight upward trajectory ever. It's sort of choppy seas. But I think they felt that they were kind of beyond that with these guys because it's not like it's their

second year in the league. It's their fourth for Johnson, third for Fantilli. I think they're better than they have shown. And I think the proof of that is how well they have played at certain times, look at their numbers in the first and the second period. And then just look at the cliff that hits in the third period, right? And maybe that's a man against boys, just proof of that. But I think this is a team that should be much more competitive. The other thing I've seen that I think drives Waddell crazy is,

and for me, I know there are a lot of, lot of fans that disagree with this, but Dermitri Voronkov is the 6'5, 230-pound, just absolute behemoth, who curls away from checks, sidesteps hits, who skates away from scrums. And it absolutely drives me and them crazy to see this player with that skill set, basically just become another forward. And there are times where he's challenged, and my God, it's vicious. He takes care of people.

But he's kind of the poster child for me for this, but there are just tons of guys. And I saw it again last night. I think bonuses will push to change this. The space in front of both nets is just way too easy against the blue jackets. Way too easy. And they curl away from hits. There are opportunities to finish checks, and they don't skate through them. And this should be a physical team. They want to be a physical. They have to be a physical team. They're not hard to play against. And that needs to change.

We also got to get a Rick bonus to find some way to make Adam Finns Hilley shoot 16% again because he's down. He's down below 10%. Like some of the five on five numbers are good, but the finishing hasn't been there at the level we saw from him last season. He was like 25% in the second half last year. Just do that. Just do that again. Simple. Easy peasy.

Yeah. Portie, thanks for the time, man. We're going to let you go. We know you're a busy fellow. So thanks again, and I'm sure we'll talk to you down the road. Thanks, guys. Good chat with you. There he goes. B and DGB will be right back after the break.

All right, we're back. Sean McIndoo. What have you learned? I feel like you learned something this morning. Thanks to Jonah Seagull, right? What have we learned, Sean? It is Mitch Martyr Week in the hockey world. This is we get Leafs, Golden Knights, in Vegas.

this week. And then next week, you get the big Mitch Martner return to Toronto. That will be lots of fun for everybody. And I'm sure everyone will be super chill. Normal. The whole thing. Very chilling.

Normal. Yeah, what I learned this morning is that, Jonas has a great piece on Mitch Martyr in which the main takeaway is that it sounds like, uh, how do we put this so that it's not, I mean, it's easy to say it sounds like he's not happy in Vegas. I think that's a stretch.

That's not what Jonas is saying. But he's making an adjustment that, yeah, picking up and leaving home and family and all of that stuff and starting all over again, these guys are human beings. And it's sometimes the grass isn't instantly greener on the other side. They don't have grass in Vegas. They don't. So it's definitely not to. I mean, they don't have any in Canada right now either. So it's true.

I'll lose lose there for, uh, for the Marners. But, um, you know, Mitch Marner has been good in Vegas this year. He hasn't been great. He hasn't been, you know, the hundred point Mitch Marner. It hasn't been the whole, you know, when that transaction went down, we all went. Boy, you put this guy in a line with Jack Eichel, put him with Mark Stone. And boy, the other team will never touch the puck. Has it quite clicked that way, which is fine.

It takes time to adjust to things like that. But I will say this. Like just as a fan and as a, you know, as a we live in narrative world, the whole idea of, you know, Mitch Martyr going somewhere and then being like, oh, I'm not happy here. That's a great story for fans to jump on, but just you hope the best for him. Like, it's even if you're a Leafs fan, it's like, it's done. Am I surprised, am I surprised here you say that?

I'm not. You're a nice enough guy, I suppose. You're going to, you're going to wish the best for people. I'll even say this. I would, I would not be shocked. In fact, I'll make the prediction. I think by the end of Mitch Meyer's career, I think he's back in Toronto. maybe just one last year when he's 40 years old and he's got the Joe Thornton beard and whatever else.

But the point is, it's not happening now. It's done for now. So just you wish him the best. And, you know, he's got the young family and all that. And how can I put this? There is always an interesting. I'm just like letting you cook on this one. It's just an interesting vibe about Mitch Marner in Toronto, where he seemed like a,

guy who maybe was a little tougher to make happy than other people. And so if that's continuing in Vegas, okay, I'm not surprised. Like I say, it was pick me up and drop me in a completely different city in a different country and check back with me in six months and I'll probably be making some adjustments too. You just hope the best for them because if you weren't happy in Toronto where you were a god and now you're in Vegas where you're more anonymous, which be a god or a guy. And you're a guy. There's, I don't know, you're kind of running out of options.

So we'll see. Anyways, real good piece by Jonas. I would encourage people to check it out. This is sort of the warm up week of the, and then next week it'll be all Mitch Martiner all the time. And he'll get a smattering of booze in Toronto and then they'll play an 18 minute video and everyone will use the word classy 47 times and it'll be fine. Without prompting, Marner brought up the snow and how much he missed it.

Jonas writes, he wondered what Christmas would feel like without it. He was taken aback by how early allergy season arrived in Nevada. The dryness that came with life in the desert also took some getting used to. Make sure you got chapsic, ready. Marner was shrewdly told on arrival. Like, this is people, I mean, people are going to read this story. Don't you pull out the bits and pieces and analyze them quite a bit, I think. And be waving chapstick at him at the.

It's not impossible. Don't you, isn't there a part of you? Probably, I mean, for you as an outsider in this, don't you wish he had played the heal more when he left? Because he, you know, with Mitch Barner, there's always been like, the stuff behind the scenes, and then there was what he tried to put in front of the camera. There's just like a degree of,

like, he always tried to do the right thing. There's like a degree of obliviousness to him, I feel like where it's like he doesn't quite like, you know, him like him pulling on the, like him pulling on the Vegas jersey in front of the marketing department or whatever it was.

That just kind of, that just kind of sums up the vibe I've always gotten from him. Like it's like, okay, okay, okay, man. But he has, he has tried. Like you can't, You know, you look at it and you go like, I mean, he's going to get booed next week by a portion of the fan base. I don't know how loud or it'll be everyone. But, you know, he always tried to say over 50 percent of the people who are making noise.

I think it'll be the kind of like 50-50, you know, welcome back. He'll get cheered when they play the video. But then there'll be booze when he touches the puck kind of deal. and, you know, when he scores the winning goal in the shootout, which we can all pencil in, you know, I think it'll be mixed. I don't think it's going to be a Mike Keenan comes back to New York situation, but I don't know. I guess the thing you can say about all this as far as him playing to heal, he's never done that. The best heel promos in this entire thing have been cut by Brian Marchant, who's not even on either one of these teams. maybe we could bring him back for next week.

Just have him like special guest ring announcer. They should have him in the tunnel and pass him the mic if the booze get too loud. So that's right. And then let him run out on the ice. Oh, all right. Everybody. Okay. Yep.

What's wrong with you people? He served admirably. That's right. He's part of this community. How dare you? Exactly. That'd be good. And he'd do it too.

Yeah. check the Panthers schedule and see if they're free that day. Make it happen. We can work this out for sure. I learned something about another Atlantic division team. There's other Atlantic division teams? Can you believe it? I don't know if the Bruins are good.

I'm not going to say that I can't look at that lineup and take it all that seriously. That's still a group of forwards that just doesn't move me. in any kind of way. But they've won six to seven games. They beat Detroit last night. They're in a wild card spot today, which doesn't mean anything. I am conscientiously trying not to turn every week into like, okay, like here's where we are in the Eastern Conference wildcard race,

because it could change and will change every single night from here on out. So where a team is on a given night doesn't matter all that much. But I feel like personally, I haven't taken the Bruins seriously as a contender. And now it's like, maybe I should. You got David Posernag. He's got 15 points in those last seven games. Again, Boston's won six of them. 15 points, four goals.

Swamen's been really good. More than seven goals saved above expected in that stretch. is say a percent is up around 920. Like this is this to me, and I think this is maybe why I'm a little bit more in on the Bruins than I was before. This is how we thought they would, this was their chance at winning games. Like if they were going to be an actual contender,

it was going to need to be because they had Posternak, you know, at the top of his game and swam in his well. There's something different, I think, about having your best players be your best players on a winning streak versus God bless Morgan Giki, right? He's a good player, but he should not be scoring more goals than David Posternak.

Like if Boston wants to be good, they need David Posternak to be, you know, top five points, David Posternock. So I think the fact that, you know, they're getting a lead in their right direction by those two guys in particular. So Swam and in Pasta. I think that's maybe what has piqued my interest in them a little bit more than. what we'd seen over the last little bit. And they're an easy enough team to ignore in the sense that, you know, we love it when a team builds up, they're a contender, and then the window slam shut,

which is what happened last year. And then you go, okay, now we know how this works in sports. Go take your couple of years, do your little rebuild, and we'll see you back when you're ready to compete. And here they are, kind of slipping in there. The other thing about the Bruins, and I don't know if I admire their surfer, it annoys me. But your feelings about the Bruins are really influenced by how you feel about the loser point or the bonus point or whatever. Because they are right now, wins and losses, they're 26 and 21 on the season.

Okay. They've won 26 games. They've lost 21 games. You know who else is 26 and 21? The Montreal Canadians, who everybody looks at and goes, that's a good team. flat out. I mean, you know, they're not, they're not perfect, but that's a good playoff team. And yet you also look at the Bruins and in terms of regulation losses, they have as many as Columbus who just fired their coach. So what are we doing here? And the issue is the Bruins win a lot of games. They lose a lot of games in regulation. They have two loser points, fewest in the league. And we respect it. But it does make it confusing. That and the fact, like, can we just please get all the

teams to play the same number of games. All the teams in the East. Because the Bruins right now have got four teams, Toronto Buffalo, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh that are behind them in points and ahead of them in points percentage. That's what I'm saying. I didn't sign up for math, man. That's why it's not worth obsessing over who's in a while.

And I know I'm like undoing the point I just made because I'm like, well, the Bruins are in a wild card spot, probably time to pay. pay attention to them. But like, we need to generally resist that urge because points percentage is, is all over the place. We're also at a point in the schedule right now where there's, there are serious games played disparities,

which is, which is important. Sean, I know you brought that up as related to the Red Wings and in the weekend rankings because, you know, they've been intermittently at the top of the conference, but they've also consistently had two or three more games played than everybody.

So it's like you can't take it all that seriously. because that's a relevant, that's a relevant number of points, right? But, man, and I don't know. I don't want to overstate how good I think the Bruins may or may not be. But, you know, Swamen's good, Possmanach's good, geeky's, you know, he's still on balance over the last couple of years, been great. Pavel Zaka is playing well. That's a must have for them because their center depth is just so, so shaky on its best day.

But if they're getting good production from him, you know, I think they're going to be in the mix more legitimately than maybe I thought. It varies points. One last point to make looking at the standings page. It's not to be all and end all of everything, but you look at goals differential. They are ahead of all the non-playoff teams, ahead of the Leafs,

ahead of the Islanders, ahead of the HABs, ahead of those Detroit Red Wings. So they're ahead of a bunch of teams. Some of those are pretty close. Yeah. I mean, if you're looking like that is a number you can look at if you're looking for evidence that somebody is fake. That's a pretty good one.

If they're sitting there minus 10 on the year, well, Bruins are plus nine. It's not a fantastic number, but it's a number that tells you that, okay, this isn't smoke and mirrors necessarily. It's just, it's a situation too in the conference where, you know, there's so much. So much slop in the middle of it, right? So much mediocre in the middle. Like maybe if you have an elite goal score and a low-end MVP candidate and then a goalie-like Swamman who's certainly shown flashes in the past of being a capital G guy, like maybe that's maybe that's all it takes to keep them in the mix.

Because I can guarantee you on January 14th, I was not anticipating talking about, you know, the Philadelphia Flyers and the Pittsburgh Penguins as as legitimate playoff contenders. Isn't it crazy? Isn't it cute how we're acting like any of this matters as if Tampa is ever going to lose the game again? No, let's see. How many more games they have? Finish the season.

Finish the season on a 41 game winning streak. 37. So yeah, that'll be about in the 40s and then 16 more straight in the playoffs. And we're all set. As long as Nick Paul doesn't get hurt during the Olympics, everything will be fine, right? Yeah, that's a good way to look at it. What's coming up for you this week, but do you have a post this morning? I do.

I have a post this morning. We're looking at the prediction contest. We're halfway through the season, so we're taking a look at what we collectively got right and what we got wrong. And it's mostly the latter, but we're just kind of taking a look and seeing what has caught us by surprise so far. I love the prediction contest. you know do you know i do it every year pseudonymously pseudonymously pseudonymously wow so you got like a burner account that you use in the comment section that's none of your business you can look we can do i feel like we can do some analytics on the

thumbs up on sean gentilly posts and see if we can figure out who if you see any winning entrances from crag c that's that that's my that's my alias on on all on any and all internet message boards. Nobody would suspect a thing. Kind of a light night, man. Four games. We got cracking devils, uh, sends rangers, flyers savers and of course Mitch Marner,

the Mitch Marner led Vegas golden nights against the Kings. So enjoy those. Uh, we'll be back next week. I'm sure Frankie will be as well. Thank you Sean McIndoo. Thank you to the great Aaron Portsline. And thank to you fine folks for listening to the Athletic Hockey Show. Ali and I are back on Thursday. We're bringing a friend.

He's got a long last name that doesn't have many vowels in it. Yes, that's right. Stonlastician. He's back. Tune in then. And again, we love you. Thank you folks very much.